Ben Carson: Stop Already With the Selfies!

If you meet Ben Carson on the presidential campaign trail in the coming months, don't ask him to take a selfie with you.

Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and likely 2016 GOP White House contender, was one of 10 contributors to The Washington Post's annual "Spring Cleaning" column on Thursday.

Other writers suggested getting rid of what they consider their own ubiquitous annoyances, including crowd funding, the ban on foreign-born presidents, and the term "moderate Muslims."

Carson took on selfies, the photos shot of oneself with a cellphone camera either with other people or at a notable location. He cites the "obvious narcissism," and the potential hazards from trying to take a selfie while driving or getting too close to wild animals.

But what really makes the doctor sick is the newest innovation: the selfie stick.

The selfie stick allows users to hold the cellphone at a longer distance, thereby not crowding the shot with faces – or portions of faces.

"The stick doesn't just validate selfies by building a cottage industry around them. It also says, 'Snap them everywhere!'" Carson writes.

He notes that the stick has been banned from the Australian Open, Emirates Stadium (home of Britain's Arsenal Football Club), the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Coachella and Lollapalooza music festivals.

That, Carson said, is because selfie sticks are dangerous "to animals, sports spectators, artwork, and the rest of us."

Mediaite noted that Carson himself isn't immune from the selfie — at least not from appearing in other people's selfies — sharing this tweet:

If you meet Ben Carson on the presidential campaign trail in the coming months, don't ask him to take a selfie with you. Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and a likely 2016 GOP White House contender, was one of 10 contributors to The Washington Post's annual "Spring Cleaning"...